Top Secret Part 49

When Cronley pushed open the door and walked into the building, he saw desks, tables, chairs, and filing cabinets fresh from a Quartermaster Depot. Corrugated paper was still wrapped around the legs of the metal furniture.

When he opened a door on the right side of the room, he found a stairway going up. He took the steps two at a time, and the lieutenant and the sergeants followed him.

They found themselves in a large room. There was more furniture, including a bed and bedside table, also obviously fresh from a QM warehouse. There were three doors leading out of the room. One door led to a bathroom, and the others onto closets, one of which was a small room.

Lieutenant Stratford and his sergeants looked at him expectantly.

Well, I might as well get this over with.

"Let me have your attention," Cronley began. "Before we get started, a couple of questions and then a little speech. You know that Major McClung, who knows what's going on here, has volunteered your services for indefinite TDY. I can't tell you for how long that will be, but figure on ninety days. Anyone have a problem with that? And before you ask, no, you can't bring your Schatzis down here from Frankfurt."

That earned some chuckles.

"Anyone want to go back to Frankfurt?"

No one responded.

"Next question: You first," he said, pointing to the junior ASA man, Sergeant Fortin. "How do you feel about black people?"

"Sir?" the sergeant said. The question was obviously confusing.

"Simple question, Sergeant Fortin. How do you feel about black people? More specifically, how would you like to have a black first sergeant?"

"A black first sergeant?"

"The Pullach compound will be guarded by a reinforced company of soldiers from an anti-tank battalion of Second Armored. They're all black, including their first sergeant, who is six feet four and weighs maybe two-eighty. When provoked, he can be one mean sonofab.i.t.c.h. Since I have no intention of setting up a separate white guy/black guy operation, now that you're going to be here, this big black guy will be your first sergeant. Do you have any problems with that?"

"Sir, I don't know."

Cronley did not hesitate: "Okay. Go wait in the truck. If you tell anyone what you saw here, or think you saw here, you're going to find yourself on a slow boat to the Aleutian Islands, where you can count on counting s...o...b..a.l.l.s for the next couple of years. Go."

Fortin started for the stairwell.

"What about you, Sergeant Kramer?" Cronley asked the younger of the staff sergeants. "You have problems with working under a black top kick?"

Fortin, almost to the stairwell, turned.

"Sir?"

"What?"

"How does this black first sergeant feel about white guys?"

"Valid question," Cronley replied. "I look at him as my best friend. As far as I know, the feeling is mutual."

"He's a pretty good soldier?"

"He made first sergeant at twenty-one when all the other non-coms in his company were killed or wounded. He comes from an Army family. His great-grandfathers were Cavalry soldiers who fought Apaches and Comanches in the West, and two of his grandfathers riding with the Ninth Cavalry beat Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. That answer your question?"

"I'll stay, sir."

"Because of what I said?"

"Sir, Major McClung said what you're doing here is important. That, and what you said about this black guy being your best friend. And what the h.e.l.l, we're all in the same Army, right, sir?"

"Yes, we are." Cronley turned to Kramer and Mitch.e.l.l. "Either of you have any problems about First Sergeant Dunwiddie?"

Both said, "No, sir."

"Okay. Welcome to the General-Bros Sd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation. In English, that's the General Offices of the South German Industrial Development Organization. Now-and really pay attention to this-what follows is cla.s.sified Top SecretLindbergh. The use of deadly force has been authorized to preserve the secrecy of anything connected with this operation.

"This organization formerly was known as Abwehr Ost. I will now tell you what Abwehr Ost was and what it's doing now. Shortly before the war was over . . .

". . . Any questions?"

Staff Sergeant Kramer chuckled.

"Did I say something amusing, Sergeant?" Cronley snapped.

"No, sir. I was just thinking, now I know how you people got away with shooting up the IG's car."

"How'd you hear about that?"

"I was in the CIC/ASA motor pool, sir, when they dragged it in. Colonel Schumann's driver was still in shock."

"And?"

"So I asked him what had happened, and he said they were in the Bavarian Alps on some back road Schumann insisted they take and they came across a CIC detachment-in a monastery-that Colonel Schumann had never heard of. So he decided to have a look. A lieutenant told him that he couldn't come in-"

"That was me," Cronley said.

"And the colonel said, 'Don't be absurd. Go around him.' And then three of the . . ."

"Of the what?"

"He said 'three of the largest, meanest-looking . . . Negroes'-that's not exactly what he said, sir, if you take my meaning-he'd ever seen let loose with a pedestal-mounted .50 cal Browning."

"This story is all over the ASA, is it?"

"Yes and no, Captain Cronley," Lieutenant Stratford said. "Has everybody heard it? Yes. Is anybody going to talk about it, except within the ASA? No. The same afternoon they dragged Colonel Schumann's staff car into the motor pool, Major McClung went down there and told everybody that n.o.body had seen a shot-up staff car. The ASA is in the business of keeping secrets."

"I didn't mean to interrupt this, sir," Staff Sergeant Kramer said.

"I'm glad you did," Cronley said. "It reminded me of something else I need to say. I don't know how this idiocy got started, but the Army pretends that cryptographers and radio operators-h.e.l.l, clerk typists-don't read or understand what they're typing, encrypting, decrypting, or transmitting or receiving.

"I don't go along with that. So long as you're here, I not only expect you to read whatever we send or receive over these devices, but to understand what's being said. If you don't understand something you've handled, ask. Everybody got that?"

There was a chorus of "Yes, sir."

"Okay. Get a desk and chair from downstairs. We'll set these things up in the larger of these two closets."

The three non-coms went to the stairwell, then down it.

"Permission to speak, sir?" Stratford said when they were out of earshot.

"I went to Texas A&M, Stratford. Not West Point. You don't have to ask my permission to say anything."

"Yes, sir. I wanted to say that was very impressive. You handled that very well."

Cronley didn't reply.

Stratford said: "Tell me. Did this enormous first sergeant of yours go to college?"

"As a matter of fact, he did."

"Norwich?"

Cronley nodded.

"Me, too. When I heard that line about the Buffalo Soldiers beating Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill, I knew it had to be Dunwiddie. He was a rook-a freshman-when I was in my senior year. But you pay attention to rooks who are as big and black as Dunwiddie."

"I'm really glad to hear you know Tiny, Stratford."

"How come he's not an officer?"

"Because he got screwed out of his commission by a white officer."

[ FIVE ].

The ASA technicians had the Collins and the SIGABA set up far more quickly than Cronley expected they would.

Sergeant Kramer, who had changed his mind about staying, looked up from the desk.

"All we need now, sir, is the access code and the name you want to call this station."

"Let me sit down there, please," Cronley said.

"I'm a pretty good typist, sir."

"As the result of a month's detention when I was in the sixth grade, so am I. I often think that typing is the most valuable skill I brought into the Army."

The sergeant laughed and stood. Cronley took his chair.

There was a telephone dial on the front of the SIGABA. Cronley dialed in the access code. Green indicator lights illuminated. A message appeared on the screen: ENTER STATION ID.

"What shall we call our little station?" Cronley wondered aloud. "Where are we? Munich. What comes to mind when you hear Munich? Hitler's beer garden. Beergarden? Better, Beermug."

He began typing.

A strip of paper began to snake out of the SIGABA, as simultaneously the message was typed on a roll of paper by the teletype typewriter that was part of the SIGABA/Collins system.

When he had finished typing, and the teletype typewriter stopped clattering, Cronley tore the paper tape free and fed it back into the SIGABA. Then he tore what the teletypewriter had printed from the machine, read it, and then handed it to Sergeant Kramer.

"Pa.s.s it around when you're finished," he ordered.

"Yes, sir."

PRIORITY.

TOP SECRET LINDBERGH.

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN.

FROM BEERMUG.

MSG NO 00001 1100 GREENWICH 4 NOVEMBER 1945.

TO VINT HILL SPECIAL.

WISH TO JOIN TANGO NET.

ACKNOWLEDGE.

- "Sergeant Mitch.e.l.l, right? Cronley asked the technical sergeant.

"Yes, sir."

"You're senior, so you get the dirty job. You are hereby appointed Cla.s.sified Doc.u.ments NCO. I don't suppose you have a weapon?"

"A .45. In the truck, sir."

"Not doing you much good there, is it? Go get it. When you have it, I will give you this, which you will keep on your person until I can get my safe moved here from Kloster Grnau. I will then give you the combination to the safe. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

The SIGABA began to whir.

"Hold off on getting your pistol until we hear what Vint Hill has to say," Cronley ordered.